As the month of October draws to a close following recent reversals for the Confederate Army, this week’s Georgia Baptist Christian Index offers words of encouragement to the white citizens of God’s chosen nation. Enslavement of the black race, and liberty and freedom for the white race, is God’s will and worth fighting for at all costs, for God will prevail in the end.
Providence rules. Let us keep this idea firmly in our minds, and though, apparently, fortune may turn against our country, we will be as strongly convinced that all things are working together for good, as that God is merciful and benevolent. Depression should be banished from our minds; and, with a sublime faith in our Generals, in our armies, in our government, in the justice of our cause, and in the beneficence of an over-ruling and just Deity, we should muster every energy for gigantic and unfaltering exertions.
Duty to our country, duty to our liberties, duty to our families, and duty to ourselves, demands of us the manifestation of undeviating, and enthusiastic determination to resist, and to triumph over would-be subjugators. Not while the world stands must we entertain the thought of retreat or submission. No misfortune should be allowed to dishearten, no reverse depress; nor any defeat discourage us.
That for which we fight is worth a thousand defeats; and that which we would escape, will be cheaply escaped at any sacrifice. One idea only must animate us; and that idea is success. One resolution only must inspire us; and that resolution is triumph. When this becomes the general purpose of every mind in the South, Lincoln might as well attempt to stop the rolling tides of old Ocean, as to prevent entirely our onward march to independence.
Courage and fortitude, then, Southerners! The strenuousness of your efforts, the firmness of your determination, and the justice of your cause, will surely evoke the favor of Him, Omnipotent, who rules over the affairs of nations.
Sorrow may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. The rosy fingered aurora of liberty, is preparing to open the gates of Freedom’s morn; and the glorious effulgence of the sun of disenthralment will soon burst over our land.
Source: “Words of Cheer,” Christian Index, October 29, 1862
